


Rooftop Romance (alternatively; nineteen ways two idiots fall in love)

by merlinemrys



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-24
Updated: 2012-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-19 09:52:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/572004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merlinemrys/pseuds/merlinemrys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin moves into the building behind Arthur's when they're six. Hostile stuffed animals, midnight escapades, lockpicking and ew, feelings, are the result.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rooftop Romance (alternatively; nineteen ways two idiots fall in love)

**Author's Note:**

> idk i was inspired by mal/this: http://colinmorgay.tumblr.com/post/36424556842. originally an askfic for her i'm sorry

_i._ There was a boy who moved in to the top floor of the old apartment building behind Arthur's mansion. He was thin and gangly and pale and Arthur watched him through his window as he tripped over his own feet more times than Arthur could count. His ears were too big and his smile too wide, Arthur decided with the unrelenting logic of a six year old, for them to be friends.

_ii._ "Hello!" Arthur squinted out the window to see the boy from the apartment on his rooftop, smiling wide and waving cheerfully. He glared. The boy kept smiling. With an exaggerated sigh, Arthur put down his toy soldiers and opened the window to clamber down besides him.

"My name is Arthur Pendragon and I am /busy/," he sniffed, feeling a twinge of regret when the boy's smile faded.

"I'm Merlin Emrys," he offered anyway with the same English accent (maybe a bit less posh) as Arthur, tucking his hands under his armpits. Arthur wrinkled his nose.

"What kind of name is /Merlin/?"

Merlin's smile was gone entirely.

"What kind of name is Pendragon?" he snapped. Arthur drew himself to his full height of three feet, six and one-quarter inches. He puffed out his chest.

"My father's name commands great respect, peasant!"

Merlin glared. "You're a prat."

Arthur glared back. "You're an idiot."

Huffing, Arthur turned back to his window and made to go back to his room when his foot slipped on a tile and he was falling, father was going to /kill/ him for this if he didn't die--and suddenly there was a thin hand wrapped tightly around his wrist, hauling him slowly back up to the rooftops. Merlin flopped down after his daring rescue, panting, as Arthur stared at him dumbfounded.

"You saved my life!" he exclaimed. Merlin mumbled something feebly and turned over onto his stomach. Arthur sprang up and ran to his room to retrieve a foam sword, coming back out to tower imperiously over Merlin.

"I dub thee Sir Merlin of Arthurville!" he proclaimed, whacking Merlin's head with the sword.

"Oh, wonderful," Merlin grumbled, and Arthur decided to pardon the boy for his ears and his smile.

_iii._ "Merlin," Arthur drawled from the windowsill, grinning when Merlin's head shot up and hit the underside of his bed, "what /are/ you doing?"

Merlin scrambled out, nose dusty and long arms covered in soot. "I actually have to clean my own room, Arthur," he grumbled, half-heartedly tossing a dusty rag at Arthur that fluttered sadly to the roof a foot away from him. Arthur rolled his eyes and hopped out his window, picking up the rag and making his way over to Merlin's room with practiced ease. He arranged the rag into a bonnet over Merlin's head, grinning at the deadly glare pinning him.

"Such a pretty girl, Merlin," he cooed. Merlin shoved the rag in his mouth.

_iv._ The first time Arthur felt completely out of his depth was when he was nine and saw Merlin cry. The boy was sitting with the side of his head resting against the window, tears streaming down his face and shoulders shaking in silent sobs as trembling fingers toyed with the wings of the fluffy dragon, Kilgharrah, that Arthur had given him for his birthday. Arthur didn't say anything and sat in the darkness of his room, chest aching until Merlin padded to his bed and went to sleep. The dragon glared at him from the windowsill.

_v._ The next day, there was a fluffy white dragon outside Merlin's window with the word Aithusa sewn on its tail. A week later, Arthur found a ratty golden retriever on his windowsill with a card next to it--"His name is James and Mum taught me how sew him. His face is weird like yours." Arthur put it at the head of his bed.

_vi._ It wasn't until a year later that Arthur learned why Merlin had been crying when, on the same day, he was sitting with knobby knees drawn up to his chest at the same spot by the window. Both the dragons were cradled forlornly in his lap and Merlin was curled in on himself, hunched over and tucked into the shadowy corner. Hesitantly, Arthur crawled over the rooftops to window with James (who had grown considerably dirtier and lost a few buttons in battle during the last year) and his toy soldiers in tow. He knocked on the window and when Merlin turned away, he picked the lock. Merlin taught him that one, and he was rather proud of the skill.

Arthur silently set up a battle scene between the knights and the animals, cheering to himself when Merlin's thin frame stopped shaking, his eyes fixed on the battle.

"Dad left seven years ago," Merlin said quietly while Kilgharrah ate up the last of the soldiers. Arthur stopped making roaring noises.

"He just left me and Mum," he murmured, "but Mum won't talk about it. Sometimes--"

Merlin broke off in a sniffle, burying his head in his arms. Arthur decided that his manliness could take a break as he scooted by Merlin and wrapped an arm around him.

"Sometimes I think he left because of me," Merlin finished, miserably. Arthur stiffened and frowned at Merlin, whacking him across the back of the head. When Merlin looked up in indignation and hurt, Arthur merely scowled.

"Don't ever say things like that," he growled, voice as low and firm as he could make it. "Anyone would be lucky to have you in their life and I'm glad you're in mine, Merlin."

The smile that Arthur received, crinkled eyes and ducked head, was worth every soppy word.

_vii._ Arthur discovered girls when he was twelve. Merlin didn't.

_viii._ Merlin liked Gwen. Really, he did, and he reassured Arthur of this very often. He and Gwen were friends before she became Arthur's girlfriend, after all, and Merlin and Morgana and Gwen had gotten on long before Arthur stopped caring about cooties. (Unless they were from his sister, that witch.) But the fact remained that Arthur saw less and less of Merlin each day, especially when he and Gwen would sit in his room and talk. Merlin didn't talk as much anymore.

_ix._ Arthur went through a string of girls when he entered high school. Sophia was terrible, Vivian wasn't much better, but he still got on with Elena (and Gwen, for that matter) and he was still positively enraptured by Mithian. One day he closed his blinds during one of her visits, something he didn't remember ever doing. Dust flew up, caught in the sunbeams shining through.

The next morning Arthur opened them again, holding a new camera he wanted to show Merlin since the girly idiot was into the arts, but his blinds were closed and his curtains drawn. He'd never closed them before, not when Arthur broke his favorite telescope or when Merlin cried about the kitten he saw that was run over or when Arthur was mad at him about finishing all the apple juice. Arthur sat on the roof and watched Merlin's room. His heart hurt.

_x._ They hardly saw each other at school. They didn't have any classes together, didn't have the same clubs, didn't have the same friends. Arthur liked his footie mates, Gwaine and Leon and Elyan and Percival, but they weren't the same as Merlin with his big ears and his bigger smile. Sometimes Arthur could see Merlin painting or sketching in his room. Sometimes Merlin would sit outside and draw, but he always clambered back inside when he saw Arthur in his room. He was good.

Once Merlin caught him watching, and he gave Arthur a quick smile. Arthur left for the bathroom and when he came back, the curtains were closed.

_xi._ Arthur watched the shadows behind Merlin's curtain shift, sometimes. Occasionally they were open--usually in the morning, and Arthur could catch a quick glimpse of Merlin's hesitant smile if he was lucky--but never at night.

One day he saw Merlin and another shadow in the room. It was taller than Merlin, bulkier, wide across the shoulders; unlike Arthur, who'd grown broad-shouldered and proportionally buff (fat, as Merlin called it, but Merlin was an idiot), Merlin was still skinny and gangly and lanky and too pretty to be human.

Arthur saw Gwaine's car leaving hours later. He wondered what the senior was doing with someone two years younger than him and he got his answer when he saw Gwaine and Merlin walking down the halls of school together, hand in hand.

Merlin didn't look at him.

_xii._ Arthur put off speaking to Merlin for a week. He tucked his old toys and James (poor thing, hardly even held together at the seams anymore) and marched over to Merlin's window. The roof creaked and he toned down his marching. He knocked on the window and when there was no answer, picked the lock and pushed across the blinds to the sound of Merlin spluttering.

"Don't be such a girl, Merlin, I'm just--" Arthur cut off at the sight of Merlin tugging on a pair of jeans, pale chest naked and face flushed red.

"Dammit, you prat, let me get some clothes on!" he snapped, wildly fumbling in his closet for a shirt and tugging it on. Arthur stood awkwardly by the window, face hot and pants uncomfortably tight.

"So, um."

He coughed, trying to dispel the tension. It didn't work. He threw James at Merlin and that seemed to do the trick, Merlin lifting his scruffy head of hair to glare at Arthur. He merely grinned, sitting himself down by the wall.

"You and Gwaine, eh?" Merlin flushed again, sitting against his bed with his knees drawn up to chest. Arthur recognised it as his death curl of defense, dubbed by his eight-year-old self.

"What about it?" Merlin asked, wary voice covered with false bravado. Arthur regarded him silently. He grinned and shrugged.

"Nothing. Just use protection, that's all." He laughed as Merlin threw James at his face, aim just as terrible as when he was a kid.

"What, you'll beat him up for me if he hurts me?" Merlin mocked.

Arthur smiled. "If I need to."

Merlin looked at him in surprise before ducking his head down again, smile on his face. Arthur ignored the ache in his chest.

_xiii._ It got better after that. Merlin started talking to Arthur again and the curtains were only closed when Gwaine was over and sometimes at night. (Arthur tried not to think about what Merlin was doing, it was better for his brain and his hormones.) But Kilgharrah and Aithusa still sat on Merlin's bed, and Kilgharrah glared at Arthur every time he went over.

_xiv._ Arthur punched a kid at school for shoving Merlin into a locker. Valiant had apparently decided that since Gwaine had graduated (and parted on amicable terms with Merlin, as he told Arthur), the boy was fair game to be bullied. Merlin insisted that he hadn't needed any help, Arthur, you pigheaded brute, but Arthur found a handmade donkey with ridiculously long ears (he shouldn't have expected any different from Merlin) by his windowsill with another note tagged onto it.

"His name is Brad and he's an ass like you." Arthur placed him next to James on his bed. Kilgharrah smiled at him when he took James to get stitched up.

_xv._ Merlin kept his windows open all the time now, and Arthur caught him changing more times than he could count. Arthur started keeping a bottle of lotion by his bed.

_xvi._ Arthur told Merlin almost daily that he needed to eat more and get more sleep and take a break from studying, dammit, all those AP classes weren't healthy, especially in addition to the IB program--he wanted to go back to Old England and seemed determined to earn a scholarship. Arthur didn't doubt he could do it. Merlin, in return for Arthur's nagging (which did not resemble an old hen, thank you), attempted to throw things at Arthur and sniped about how not everyone was a football-soccer-whatever genius. He helped Arthur with his calculus homework anyway.

Arthur silently foreswore that if Oxford didn't take him, Arthur would.

_xvii._ He probably should've edited that last statement before telling it to Merlin.

_xviii._ "You'll take me?" Merlin asked, mouth pulled back in a smirk and eyes crinkled in amusement. Arthur flushed, backpedaling in Merlin's room until his back hit the window.

"Um," he strangled out eloquently. Merlin's smile was practically predatory now, and he stalked towards Arthur slowly and confidently.

"Is that a promise?" he murmured, voice low and eyes bright as he propped one arm by Arthur's head, the other coming up to wrap lithe fingers around Arthur's collar.

"Uh," Arthur choked out again. Merlin's eyebrow rose.

"What, you think I didn't notice the early nights and fruity hands?"

Arthur shot up, seduction completely forgotten for the time being. "You knew I could see you stripping! That little ass wiggle was on purpose, wasn't it!" he accused, glaring at Merlin.

He just smiled back, cheeky bastard. "What are you going to do about it?" Merlin taunted merrily, hand still fisted in Arthur's collar. "Are you going to revoke my status as knight of--mmf!"

_xix._ Kilgharrah watched in satisfaction as his masters finally kissed. Around him, Aithusa and James and Brad and all the assembled soldiers cheered. The dragon closed his eyes, smiling serenely. His job was done. The king and knight of Arthurville were together at last. The balance of nature was restored and destiny was complete.

( _+i._ Merlin made it into Oxford. Arthur took him anyway.)


End file.
